PERSICO, IGNATIUS. — Cardinal, b. in Naples on 30 Jan. 1823, d. in Rome on 7 Dec. 1895; he entered the Capuchins in 1839 and was ordained priest in 1846. He immediately sought to go on mission, and the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda sent him to Patna (India), where the Apostolic Vicar, Servant of God A. Hartmann, chose him as his companion in toil.
Thus, in 1850 he was transferred to Bombay, where Hartmann took him with him. There he founded and directed the *Bombay Catholic Examiner*, which is still published; he fought alongside Hartmann and distinguished himself in the struggle against the schism of Goa. In 1853 he was sent as Hartmann’s special delegate to Rome and as commissioner of the Apostolic Vicars of India to London to defend before the government the cause of the missions, obtaining recognition of the authority of the Apostolic Vicars. In 1854 he was named Hartmann’s coadjutor, and in 1856 Apostolic Vicar of Hindostan (Agra). During the Indian uprising against the English he suffered greatly and then came to Europe.
In Rome, together with Hartmann, he presented various proposals or *Memoranda* for the improvement of the missions; then he returned to India. Falling ill in 1860, he was forced to return to Italy. After the Franco-Prussian War, in 1866 he was sent by the Holy See on a secret mission to the United States; in 1869 he took part in the Provincial Council of Baltimore and then in the Vatican Council. In 1870 he was named Bishop of Savannah, but had to resign in 1873 on account of health. In 1874 he was sent on a diplomatic mission to Canada; in 1877 he was in India to quell the Syro-Chaldean schism in Malabar and to prepare for the erection of the hierarchy in India. In 1879 he was promoted Bishop of the three united dioceses of Aquino, Pontecorvo, and Sora, which he governed until 1887, when he was made Archbishop of Damata and sent to Ireland regarding the *Home Rule* question. Returning to Rome, the Holy See named him Vicar of the Vatican Chapter, and in 1891 Secretary of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. Finally, in 1893 Leo XIII created him Cardinal Priest of the title of St Peter in Chains and appointed him Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences and Sacred Relics. Amid so many labors and amidst such varied legations and missions, elevated to such high dignity, he ever made resplendent the humility and affable pleasantness of a true son of St Francis.